Bounty Hunter Blues
by CompanionWanderer
Summary: Star Wars, OneShot. A humorous news article exposes Boba Fett's emotional breakdown after discovering that he is a clone.


_Star Wars_ and all its characters belong to the insanely wealthy George Lucas and his evil empire.

I used to work at the Star Tours gift shop at the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida, and a fellow co-worker and I were always baffled at the way peoplecontinually begged for Boba Fett merchandise. We could never understand why he was so popular; the man speaks two lines of dialogue, appears maybe five times, and dies. So, during a slow day shortly after the release of Episode 2, I scribbled this down on a piece of register tape in between customers (yes, Disney employees get just as bored with their jobs as everyone else.)

No offense is meant to rabid fans of Fett; this is written with tongue firmly in cheek. Please do not leave reviews threatening to disintegrate me. And do not respond telling me that I have "extended universe" details wrong, or I will openly ridicule you as the geek you are.

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(Newspaper Heading)**The Tatooine Times**

(Article Title)**Bounty Hunter Blues**

(Header)** Lazy-Slob-turned-Cult-Icon Suffers Breakdown**

(Teaser)** Fett: "My whole life is a lie"**

Notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett checked himself into Coruscant's I.M. Lunaatik Mental Hospital last week, suffering from what his psych droids call, "severe clinical depression, resulting from an utter lack of a sense of identity."

"My whole life is a lie," admitted Fett yesterday, during a holo-interview. He has emerged from the mystery and shadow that have always cloaked his life to seek help. "I've never really known who I am."

Little, in fact, is known of the middle-aged Fett. Hostile and solitary, he has led the remote life of a bounty hunter, a demanding profession that often blurs the lines of identity, ethics, and loyalty. For the first time, Fett has opened up his past in order to facilitate emotional healing, though his psych droids are dubious about his prospects. "The man is a clone," says 2B-CRZD, head of the psychoanalysis wing of I.M. "And we all know how most of them turned out. Wired wrong. Those Kaminoans never figured out how to make neurons fire at the proper speed. But what can you expect?"

Fett's troubles, it appears, began early. The man he called "Father" was a bounty hunter named Jango, apparently successful and feared in the field, and a perfect role model for the youngster. After Jango's death in the Battle of Geonosis, however, Boba discovered that he himself was actually not Jango's son, but his clone.

"It changed everything," says Fett. "All my life my dad was training me to be even greater than he was. But when I found out that I _was_, for all basic intents, my dad, I began to wonder if that were possible."

This self-doubt effectively paralyzed young Fett, who nonetheless managed to eke out a living as a bounty hunter, mainly, he insists, through a lot of lucky breaks.

"I happened to be in the right place at the right time," he says. "Mostly I just stood around like an imbecile. The armor was good, you know? It helped with the whole intimidation factor. But stuff just kind of fell into my lap."

A prime example is his capture of the Rebel hero Han Solo, a feat which catapulted the obscure Fett into bounty hunter infamy.

"It was a total accident," Fett confesses. "I was hanging around the back of the Star Destroyer, waiting for them to dump their garbage so I could go through it for old _Twi'lek Tatiana_ comics. The stormtroopers were always throwing them away, and you can get good money for some of the originals on ebay now.

"Anyway, it was Vader who did the capturing. I just managed to follow the _Falcon_ to Bespin."

Reminded of his breathtaking action in Jabba's last stand here on Tatooine, Fett is scornful. "I couldn't get a single blaster bolt past that Jedi, and the end of it was I got knocked into a sarlacc pit by a _blind _guy. Even the sarlacc didn't want me. It spit me out after a couple of hours."

Fett's continued insistence of his own worthlessness doesn't mesh with his unaccountable popularity. When confronted with the existence of his enormous fan base, he becomes bitter. "They're probably all losers like me, obsessed with power and mystery because it makes them feel important. To them, it's all about the jetpack and the helmet. But nobody really knows who _I_ am.

"Nobody wants to know the man behind the mask."


End file.
